Want a meaningful relationship? Try inbound marketing for recruitment

Recruitment bashing on LinkedIn is becoming more and more common, and I for one am bored of reading the same posts. So how can a recruiter stand out from the crowd and be seen as a relationship builder and an asset to an organisation? Here's a little clue – inbound marketing for recruitment.

Recruiters are finding themselves the elephant in the room that either employers don’t want to engage with at a risk of being given a sales pitch, or that employees are scared to speak to in case it’s seen as them looking for a new job. 

Gone are the days of ringing through your local A-Z in the hope that one client will pick up and actually want to speak to you. Recruiters need to add value, not annoy potential clients and candidates. The best recruiters you speak to have the time to listen, but having come from a recruitment background I know how hard it is to give each and every candidate the time they need.

HubSpot to the rescue

However, inbound marketing and HubSpot can give you the tools to assess the fit of a candidate, match up diaries and arrange a time to speak and create excitement around that initial conversation. 

Once you register a lead on HubSpot (this could be a candidate or a client), you can then see their interactions with everything on your website - from blogs to webpages - as well as their interactions with your emails.

Being able to see and analyse the candidate's online journey can educate a recruiter on potential stumbling blocks, and reduce the risk of dropouts moving forward. You can fully qualify how invested they are in moving roles, and identify any problems before they come to a head.

For example, we all know that counter offers are the devil in recruitment. You get the offer you have worked so hard for, and then the candidate drops out and stays in their current role – frankly a complete waste of time for you and your client.

However, inbound marketing for recruitment could help you see if a candidate has read a blog you've written on how counter offers work, for example. This would suggest that this may be a potential hurdle which you can sound out from the first conversation.

Similarly, if they have downloaded a guide you've produced on salary expectations, they may feel undervalued, so a conversation around salary will help you build a meaningful relationship.

Got your emails noticed and stay out the delete pile

Similarly to being the elephant in the room, we all know a recruiter’s email is destined for the delete button. Too many recruiters send out weekly spam of ‘top talent’ which 50% of the time is probably made up.

Inbound marketing for recruitment enables you to target the right organisations with the right content. A B2B tech company isn’t interested that you have a top marketing manager from a high-end fashion brand – so why tell them? Being able to segment your data allows you to target the right clients with the most relevant content, and candidates will resonate more with your clients. This all gives you the best chance of staying out of the dreaded delete folder and building stronger relationships.

Clients aren’t the only ones who are fed up of the generic messaging, candidates are too. Candidates want to feel special, and there is nothing special about receiving the same message as everyone else in your office about how perfect you are for a new role.

Inbound marketing for recruitment can help you to customise your direct approaches, include facts you know will entice a candidate to come back and make them feel hand-picked for that particular role. With HubSpot in particular, personalisation tokens can tailor email marketing to individuals, and marketing automation sequences can send follow-up emails out once your initial message has been read. By making your messages tailored to the individuals, it shows you are human, not a sales machine only concerned about your next commission.

Become an inbound octopus

Recruitment is both a very competitive and a fast-paced environment, where missing just one call can make all the difference to matching the right candidate with the right role. How many times have you tried a candidate incessantly, and heard nothing back, only for them to call just as you answer the phone to someone else? Frustrating, I know!

This is where inbound marketing for recruitment is able to use tools such as chatbots and meeting links to build relationships and consistently manage candidates, arranging a time that works for you both without the faff of going back and forth with diaries!

In an over-populated and competitive market, it's crucial that recruiters are seen to add value, build relationships and work in partnership with both clients and candidates to stand out and win more business.